


A Crashing Wave; A Sunrise

by Intergalactic_Asher



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: All the angsty stuff happened in the past though, Canon Compliant, Cuddling, Jace is in love, Jace-centric fic, M/M, Memories, Season: COUNTER/Weight, Set after A Special Kind of Warmth, Thank you Mr. Underscore for these good good boys, fluff with a tiny bit of angst in the middle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 21:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19303981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Intergalactic_Asher/pseuds/Intergalactic_Asher
Summary: The second time Jace wakes up.





	A Crashing Wave; A Sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> I think I've been working on this fic since I finished COUNTER/Weight a year ago.... ghfhdsfh anyway I love these boys so much and they deserve to be happy

The second time Jace woke up, Addax’s arms were around him.

He still panicked, momentarily: still felt his heart race waking up somewhere unfamiliar ( _unfamiliar? When he had been everywhere dozens of times before?_ ). His mind went blank with fear; he struggled to get out, to get away- but then Addax mumbled something in his sleep, and everything came rushing back. Jace took a deep breath, let his heartbeat slow down as he relaxed against Addax.

Jace hadn't taken in much of his surroundings last night, and he looked around curiously now. It was obviously Addax’s room. The furniture was simple, in muted, solid colors, a toned-down Diaspora style that Addax had always liked. Jace smiled when he spotted a poster that had once hung in Addax’s quarters inside of Peace.

Peace was a vivid and recent memory for Jace. He's been inside of it before he woke up the first time. He shuddered at the memory. Being inside a Divine was always uncomfortable and strange, but he hadn't been at all prepared to be yanked away from it as Ibex unplugged his life support. Everything seemed to swirl together then, the past and the present crashing into each other in ways that shouldn’t have been possible. It felt like breathing after being underwater for years. It felt like being thrown on the rocks.

He had lain there for days _(hours? Weeks?_ ) struggling to move, fighting to make his own neurons fire. At long, long last he’d gotten ahold of himself enough to sit up, taken his first truly free breath in a decade. He had managed, slowly, to pull himself away from the tubes and wires, every movement  a battle for control. It took hours to sling his legs over the side of the bed, but only minutes to stand up without collapsing. By the time he noticed the food and clothing that had been left for him, it was easy to walk across the room and get them.

 _What a difference a day makes_ , Jace thought as he turned to face Addax, fast asleep but still holding Jace fiercely. It had been just past noon when Jace had stumbled, bewildered and alone, out of the facility and into the harsh light of Centralia’s false sky. Now he was warm, and Addax was with him, and through a crack in the curtains he could see the blue glow of the planet they’d created. He watched it for a moment before closing his eyes. It was called Weight, he had learned; and it certainly felt heavy in Jace's mind ( _so many memories, so many times through trying to fix it, so much of Jace's life consumed-_ )

He buried his face against Addax’s shoulder, breathed deeply. “Addax Dawn,” he whispered, tasting the sound of Addax’s new, full name on his lips. Addax hadn’t given him the whole explanation - they’d decided to do the catching up later - but it wasn’t hard to figure out that Addax had followed Natalya after all. _Addax Dawn._ It was a good name, Jace thought. Addax had always been a sunrise to him. He hoped Addax had found the respite his new name promised. It had always seemed unfair to Jace- why should the Candidate of Peace have to fight a war? ( _Ibex was an old Candidate before he was twenty; Addax was already a human sacrifice, don't make him a soldier as well._ ) And worse still was the private battle Addax had been fighting all the time Jace had known him. Jace would never forget the way Addax’s voice seemed to split in two that day, the way Peace and Order fought inside of him. Jace could practically see the future then, the splintering of the Branch, the war going on and on. He could see Addax as if he were looking across the battlefield, the enemy Jace had always feared he would be.

But for once, Jace’s fears hadn’t come true. What happened wasn’t good, exactly, but it wasn't anything he had predicted. For all the Mesh seemed like _everything_ to Jace, all it whispered in his head and shaped his world - it was still just a very big computer, and sometimes the future eluded even its calculations. Maryland September had never been willing to admit that, but Addax, who had been fighting his own computer-god for years, knew the truth of it. Jace hadn’t trusted him then, hadn’t believed they could outsmart his visions, had tried to keep the orb for himself.

He pulled himself closer to Addax now, pressed a kiss against the crook of his neck.

“Hmm?” said Addax, opening one eye and grinning sleepily at Jace. Jace returned the look and kissed him again, then once more for good measure. “Hello,” he said, eliciting a small, unimpressed noise from Addax.

Jace laughed. “Still not a morning person?” he asked, earning another small groan in response. He kissed Addax’s cheek.

They’d had the one kiss, like the big star-crossed heroes they were, before everything. Jace had found Addax deep within Peace, running simulations and looking like he hadn’t slept in days. Addax had jumped when Jace touched his shoulder.

“You should eat,” Jace had said, flooded with concern. Addax hadn’t been seen aboard the Seventh Sun for a while- had he been here this whole time?

“I’m okay.” Addax ( _just Addax, then_ ) had tried to turn back to his simulations, but Jace had been persistent.

“You won’t end the war by exhausting yourself,” he had said. “Come on, come to the commissary with me. Everything is Ibex-free.” He had grinned, hoping the old joke would shake Addax out of his funk.

But Addax had barely seemed to hear Jace’s coaxing, already looking back at his probability charts. Jace had watched, unsure what else to try but unwilling to leave. The Mesh in here mirrored his own feelings, pulling him away, pushing him closer. Ordinarily the Mesh was passive, part of the scenery of Jace's life, but Divines did funny things to it, made it unfamiliar and uncomfortable. Peace seemed to sharpen Jace’s own senses at the same time as it made the world blurry and unclear around him. Everything felt fluid here, when it should be solid and sturdy. The Mesh responded to Peace like a current conceding to pressure, and Jace worried he’d be set adrift in it and never make it back to dry land. But Addax was here ( _Addax Addax Addax Addax Addax-)_ so Jace was too.

Addax had been the one to break the silence. “Look at this,” he had said, startling Jace, who'd thought Addax had forgotten about him. Addax had  pointed to a hologram in front of him, and Jace had leaned over Addax's shoulder to see better. “I've run the numbers a hundred different ways," Addax had said. "We go with OriCon’s plan, the war picks back up. We go with the Diaspora’s plan, the war picks back up. We do what Sokrates wants, the war picks back up.” He turned to Jace, looking more desperate and honest than Jace had ever seen him. “There's no way to end it. There’s no way to find- to get _peace_ , out of this, and it wants- it’s going to-” He gestured helplessly around him, close to panicking as he tried to describe what Peace would do if they couldn’t end the war.

Jace had only the vaguest idea at the time what Addax had meant ( _a whisper, a line of tension crawling through Peace's thoughts, a silent threat  that Jace didn't understand and refused to think about_ ). But in the simulation, he had known. The fear behind Addax’s vague words and haphazard gestures had become clearer every time the memories cycled back around, and knowing this only made it more natural to cup Addax’s face in his hands, to stroke his thumb along the ridge of Addax's cheek, to trace the bags under his eyes.

 _It will be okay_ , he'd wanted to say. But Jace had spent time running his own scenarios, looking through the Mesh for a way out, and he couldn't see a way outone any more than Addax could. He would have lied and said so anyway, but Addax would have seen through that in heartbeat. So instead he pulled Addax's face around to look at him, careful but firm.  “I trust you,” he had said.

For a long moment they had just stared at each other. And then-

And then ( _because of course it had happened right then, at the one part of the loop he actually looked forward to_ ) Ibex had unceremoniously yanked his power cord out of the wall, and Jace was falling through time like a crashing wave, dragged over the rocks and thrown on the shore with Addax’s scent in his nose and ten years in between them.

( _I_ _t had always been a goodbye kiss, of sorts._ )

Jace shut his eyes and breathed deeply, willing himself not to cry over the fact that Addax was _here_ , right now, next to him. Lying in that blank room, without even his memories to keep him company, Jace had felt more desperately alone than he’d ever been in his life, certain that he'd never again see any of the people he cared about. Addax had proved him wrong again. The crowd in the square hadn’t recognized the sweaty, emaciated man in clothes three sizes too big as OriCon’s hero, but Addax had known him immediately. There had been plenty of kisses that night, more than they’d shared in all the loops combined. After spending ten years falling in love with Addax, getting to actually _be_ in love with him felt like a miracle he didn’t deserve.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled against Addax’s skin.

“Huh?” Addax had evidently begun to drift off again, because he was slow and reluctant in replying, but his arms stiffened around Jace as if he were afraid Jace would slip away.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “That day. I should have- I said I trusted you, and I-”

“Jace, for fuck's sake-" Addax seemed to drag himself awake as he spoke, and he pulled away enough to give Jace a reproachful look. “If you honestly think I’m mad at you for that-”

“No,” Jace said, shaking his head. “That’s- that’s not it.”

“What, then?”

“I said I trusted you,” Jace repeated. “I told you I trusted you to end the war, and you _did_ , but I couldn’t see it- I was scared and didn’t follow through, and I’m sorry.”

Addax looked like he was torn between laughing and rolling his eyes. “I didn’t trust me either, Jace,” he said ( _Jace's name sounded like a prayer in Addax's mouth, and Jace didn't want to hear it any other way ever again)_. “You were right not to. It was-” the sardonic look slipped off his face, and he let his gaze drop. “It was only when I saw what I was doing to you that I snapped out of it enough to stop it. I should be the one apologizing to you.”

Jace cupped Addax’s cheek, ran his thumb across that same spot below his eye. There were still circles there, but they weren’t quite so dark as they had been in those last few days. The intervening decade hadn’t made Addax soft, but it had worn down his sharp edges. When they had first met, Addax could hardly hold back his wariness long enough to shake hands. Now he was here, trusting and vulnerable in Jace’s arms. And when Jace kissed him now it was no great tragedy, no doomed endeavor. It was just honest.

When Jace finally pulled back, Addax's eyes were closed, his brow smooth and his lips slightly parted. Jace thought he might burst with affection. "What I should have told you," he said, resting his forehead against Addax's, "is that I love you.”

"I love you," Addax whispered back, warm and sleepy, and Jace didn't need to comb the Mesh for hints of what was to come. He and Addax would face the future together. That was all Jace needed to know they'd come out fine.


End file.
